Seed Round · 2026 Confidential
✦ Seed Round · May 2026 · Minneapolis, MN

The trust layer
streaming forgot to build.

Human-verified music discovery. Fair artist pay. One promise.

$19.5B
Global streaming market
600M+
Users with no AI filter
4M+
Underpaid independent artists
$0
Credible alternatives today
sonveil.app  ·  info@thricemfinancial.com  ·  Confidential & Proprietary
02

The Problem

Streaming broke two promises at once.

Spotify built its empire on the promise that it would surface music you would love. Then it began flooding those feeds with AI-generated content and offered no way to opt out.

At the same time, it built a royalty system that pays independent artists $0.004 per stream — requiring 250,000 streams to earn a single month of minimum wage.

"There were six AI songs in my Discover Weekly this week. It feels like the magic is gone. I have been a subscriber for a decade and I am finally considering leaving."

— Spotify Community Forum, 2025 · representative of thousands of similar posts
4–8
AI tracks per Discover WeeklyReported weekly by users with no opt-out available. Spotify has acknowledged the problem. They have taken no structural action.
$0.004
Spotify's per-stream rateAn artist needs 250,000 streams to earn one month of minimum wage. 4M+ independent artists are trapped in this system.
$19.5B
Global streaming revenue in 2025A $19.5B market actively losing the listener trust that built it — with no credible alternative yet.
$1.4B
Vinyl sales in 2025Proof that a large, paying audience exists specifically for music they can trust was made by a human.
03

Why Now

Three tailwinds. One window.

The conditions that make Sonveil possible — and necessary — have only just converged. The window to build the category leader is open now.

AI music is now indistinguishable
2025

Tools like Suno and Udio now produce tracks that fool casual listeners. The contamination of music feeds is accelerating. Listener trust is breaking down in real time.

Artists are organizing
200+

Major artists signed open letters demanding fairer royalties in 2024–2025. The Artist Rights Alliance, RIAA, and union coalitions are actively seeking platform alternatives.

Consumers are paying for authenticity
$1.4B

Vinyl hit $1.4B in 2025 — driven not by sound quality but by the certainty of human origin. Bandcamp and Patreon are growing. The market has proven it will pay a premium for trust.

04

The Solution

Everything Spotify will not build. We built it anyway.

Sonveil is the first music platform to certify every track as human-made before it reaches listeners — and the first to pay artists a guaranteed fair rate with full transparency.

HumanVerified™ Engine

Spectral analysis, metadata audit, distribution pattern review. Every track certified before discovery placement. No badge, no play.

Serendipity Algorithm

Explicitly designed to surface artists you have never heard of. Penalizes repetition. Rewards cross-genre discovery. The anti-algorithm.

FairWave Royalties™

$0.015 minimum per stream. Full earnings transparency. Real-time dashboard. Paid on the 15th, no black box.

Direct Fan Tipping

One-tap tips. Artists keep 97%. Sonveil takes nothing. Human-to-human connection, no intermediary.

Our Guarantee to Every Stakeholder
0%
AI in the Sonveil catalog. Every track HumanVerified™ before discovery placement. Guaranteed.
$0.015
Minimum per-stream artist rate. 3–5× Spotify. A floor, not a ceiling.
97%
Of every tip goes directly to the artist. 3% covers payment processing only.
100%
Earnings transparency. Artists see exactly what they earned, when, and from which listeners.
05

Market Size

A $19.5B market with a broken trust layer.

TAM
SAM
SOM
TAM
SAM
SOM
Total Addressable Market
Global Music Streaming
$19.5B

Total global music streaming revenue in 2025. Growing 8% annually driven by emerging market expansion and premium tier adoption.

Serviceable Addressable Market
US Premium AI-Aware Listeners
$2.4B

US streaming premium market of listeners who have expressed concern about AI music or artist pay. Survey data indicates 23% of US premium subscribers are aware of and concerned by AI contamination.

Serviceable Obtainable Market
Sonveil Year 3 Target
~$50M

250,000 subscribers at $6.99–$14.99/month by end of Year 3. Represents 0.26% of the US SAM — a highly conservative capture target.

06

Business Model

Subscription-first. Three revenue streams.

✦ Primary Revenue
Sonveil+ Subscription
$6.99 / mo

Unlimited human-verified streaming, Serendipity Algorithm, direct tipping, offline listening, no ads. Early-bird rate $4.99/mo for first 10,000 subscribers.

✦ Upsell
Sonveil Pro Subscription
$14.99 / mo

Lossless 24-bit audio, early artist access, advanced discovery analytics, priority HumanVerified queue. Targets audiophiles — highest LTV segment.

Secondary
Tip Processing Fee
3% of tips

Stripe processing fee passed through. Artists keep 97%. Revenue scales linearly with active user base and engagement.

Future — Year 2+
HumanVerified™ API
B2B License

License our AI-detection pipeline to podcasting platforms, video platforms, and other media companies seeking human-content certification.

Tier
Price
Annual LTV
Gross Margin
Sonveil Free
$0
$0 (funnel)
Sonveil+
$6.99/mo
$83.88
~68%
Sonveil Pro
$14.99/mo
$179.88
~75%
07

Traction

Pre-launch signals are strong.

4,800+
Waitlist subscribers
$0
Paid acquisition spend
5
Pages live at sonveil.app
Q3
2026 launch target
4,800+ waitlist subscribers acquired organically with zero paid marketing spend. All inbound.
FairWave Artist Program open — applications from independent artists across 12 countries. Initial catalog of 50+ verified tracks ready for launch.
Full platform infrastructure live: Supabase backend, artist dashboard, waitlist email system (Resend), artist application portal, browser extension built and tested.
Sonveil Weekly email newsletter delivering 15 hand-curated human tracks every Monday. Designed to build habit and loyalty before app launch.
iOS and Android app in final development with Expo SDK 54. EAS Build configured for App Store submission. Target submission: Q3 2026.
08

Competitive Landscape

We occupy the only quadrant that matters.

Spotify
Apple
Tidal
Bandcamp
SONVEIL
AI-Free Guarantee →
↑ Fair Artist Pay
Platform AI-Free Rate/Stream Tips Transparency
Spotify $0.004
Apple Music $0.010
Tidal $0.010 Partial
Bandcamp Partial Variable
✦ Sonveil ✓ Certified $0.015+ ✓ 97% ✓ Full
Our moat: The HumanVerified™ detection pipeline takes months to build and requires continuous calibration as AI tools evolve. First-mover advantage in this certification category is significant. No existing platform has the infrastructure or incentive to build it — it would require admitting how much AI content they already host.
09

Roadmap

From extension to platform to ecosystem.

Q3 2026 — NOW
Phase 1: Launch
  • Browser extension live
  • iOS & Android apps submitted
  • FairWave Artist Program open
  • Sonveil Weekly (email)
  • 4,800+ waitlist ready
In Progress
Q4 2026
Phase 2: Scale
  • 10,000 paying subscribers
  • 500+ verified artist catalog
  • Serendipity Algorithm v2
  • Direct artist tipping live
  • First artist payouts
Funded by Seed
Q1–Q2 2027
Phase 3: Series A
  • 50,000 subscribers
  • Series A raise
  • HumanVerified API beta
  • Label partnerships
  • Engineering team ×5
Q4 2027
Phase 4: Ecosystem
  • 250,000+ subscribers
  • B2B API licensing revenue
  • Sonveil Sessions recordings
  • International expansion
  • $22M+ ARR path
10

Team

Built by someone who lived the problem.

M
Mahmoud Dakowa
Founder & CEO

Founder of Thrice M Financial Consulting and Sonveil Inc. Based in Minneapolis, MN. Built Sonveil from the conviction that working musicians deserve to live from their art, and that listeners deserve to trust what they hear.

Operates at the intersection of financial strategy and technology product — bringing structured, business-first thinking to a market that has historically prioritized growth over integrity.

Why this founder, why now
Identified the AI contamination problem as a structural market failure, not a temporary bug — and began building the alternative before the press coverage.
Built and deployed the full Sonveil platform — landing page, artist portal, artist dashboard, browser extension, mobile app, legal pages — before raising a dollar of external capital.
Grew waitlist to 4,800+ organically with no marketing spend — proof of concept for the core thesis that this audience exists and is actively looking for an alternative.
Financial consulting background ensures rigorous unit economics and capital discipline at the seed stage.
Immediate Hires (Seed-Funded)
Head of Engineering Artist Relations Lead ML / Detection Engineer Growth Marketing Music Curator
11

Financial Projections

Conservative path to $22M ARR by Year 3.

ARR Projection
$509K
Yr 1
$4.3M
Yr 2
$22M
Yr 3
Subscribers
ARR
Net
Year 1
5,500
$509K
−$240K
Year 2
45,000
$4.3M
+$940K
Year 3
230,000
$22M
+$8.2M
Key Assumptions
Blended ARPU $7.75/mo (mix of Sonveil+ and Pro)
Monthly churn 3.5% (industry avg 4–6%)
Gross margin ~70% at scale (Yr 2+)
CAC $12–18 (organic + modest paid, Yr 1)
LTV $221 (28.6 mo avg lifetime @ $7.75)
LTV:CAC ratio ~15:1
Artist royalty pool 30% of subscription revenue
Yr 3 ARR path requires Series A close Q1 2027
Break-Even
~18,000 subscribers
Projected at month 14, assuming seed capital deployed on schedule.
12

The Ask

Seed Round

$1M
Target raise · Seed stage · 2026
Structure
SAFE note or priced seed round (negotiable)
Use of funds
Product, artist acquisition, growth, operations
Runway
18–24 months to Series A milestones
Milestones
10K subscribers, 500+ verified artists, App Store launch, break-even path
Use of $1M Seed
$1,000,000
Product & Engineering
40%
$400K — Mobile app, HumanVerified pipeline, Artist Dashboard, infrastructure
Artist Acquisition
25%
$250K — FairWave outreach, artist relations team, catalog seeding, onboarding
Growth & Marketing
20%
$200K — Listener acquisition, Sonveil Weekly growth, content, paid channels
Operations
15%
$150K — Legal, compliance, team overhead, contingency

Music is one of the last
truly human things.

We are building the sanctuary for it. Join us.

Founder
Mahmoud Dakowa
Website
Location
Minneapolis, MN  ·  Seed Round 2026
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Confidential & Proprietary  ·  © 2026 Sonveil Inc.  ·  Not an offer to sell securities